The priest rose with shaking hands. "Then may the gods mourn us all."...
"This is my task," she said, her voice like cold steel. "No man shall strike this blow but me."
They rode at nightfall, a storm brooding above.
The air grew colder the deeper they marched into the Eldwood.
The king and queen rode at the front, their horses nervous, ears pinned back against the unnatural silence of the forest. Behind them trailed a massive column of iron-clad troops. The clanking of armor and the thud of heavy boots felt loud and defensive, a desperate shield against the whispering trees. At the center of the procession was the priest, surrounded by assistants carrying heavy iron cauldrons, bundles of dried, bitter herbs, and long silver daggers.
When the forest finally opened up, the soldiers stopped in their tracks. A collective breath caught in a hundred throats.
There lay the dragon.
Up close, it was like a fallen mountain of black glass. Its ribbed wings stretched out like torn sails, partially buried under centuries of dead leaves and rotting moss. The ancient runes carved into its scales didn't gleam; they seemed to swallow the dim light around them. The ground beneath the beast was sunken, forming a dark, muddy crater that smelled heavily of sulfur and old copper.
"Set up the perimeter," the king commanded. His voice was steady, but his hand gripped the pommel of his sword so tightly his knuckles were white. He looked at his wife. "Are you certain of this?"
The queen didn't look at him. She dismounted her horse, her eyes fixed entirely on the dead monster. "We are past the point of doubts, my love."
The priest stepped forward, his face pale under his hood. With trembling hands,
He knew the price of this magic, and his preparation was a masterclass in holy desecration. While the soldiers stood in a wide, trembling circle with their swords drawn—more to keep the darkness in than to defend against anything outside—the priest and his three acolytes began the work.
They did not use normal wood for the fires. They unpacked heavy leather sacks filled with dried, blackened wood taken from gallows trees where traitors had hanged. Atop these logs, the priest scattered handfuls of fat harvested from unbaptized infants who had died in the winter plagues. When he struck a flint, the fires caught with a wet, popping sound, burning not with bright light, but with a heavy, greasy purple flame that cast long, distorted shadows against the dragon's scales.
The air instantly grew thick. The smoke carried the odor of a butcher's shop left out in the sun, mixed with the sweet, choking scent of crushed nightshade.
The priest pulled a heavy, iron-bound book from his robes. Its pages weren't parchment; they were made of dried vellum that was far too thick and uneven to be animal hide. He did not read the words; he let his fingers trace the raised, jagged characters in the dark, and began the first mantra.
His voice didn't sound like his own. It was too deep, a double-toned rasp that sounded as if another throat was opening up inside his chest.
"Zas-Kahr... Vros-Tehk... Malkor...
Okh'm vras, okh'm teth!
Sunder the skin, spill the dark water, wake the sleeping rot!
I-Kahr... Morayana... Vros-Tehk...
By the fat of the unmade, by the blood of the hanged, we tear the veil!
Drink of the black tide, flesh of our flesh, womb of our ruin!
Zas-Kahr! Zas-Kahr!
The beast shall sleep no more!"
The air grew so cold that the breath of the soldiers turned to white mist.
The queen didn't wait for the priest. She climbed the muddy bank of the crater, her boots sinking deep into the rot, until she stood directly on top of the dragon's colossal chest. Standing high above the army, her figure was outlined against the gloomy sky. She looked less like a savior and more like a conqueror.
She raised her arms, and instead of waiting for the priest to pray, she began to speak the dark words herself.
"Kahr-Vros! Malkor-Tehk!
I open my veins to the deep rot!
I take the black seed, I bear the ruin!
Zas-Kahr, give me the flesh of the dark!"
As she chanted, the wind began to howl through the dead trees, twisting the smoke from the cauldrons around her legs like writhing snakes.
With a deafening roar, the earth split open beneath them. A massive, jagged crack tore through the crater, swallowing trees and releasing a foul, hot mist from the deep underground.
With a sudden, violent motion, she drove the silver blade downward. She didn't just slide it in; she threw the whole weight of her body behind it, driving the metal deep between the cracked, ancient scales.
A deep, hollow groan echoed from the earth, as if the forest itself was in pain.
From the deep wound, the black blood didn't merely trickle—it pulsed outward, thick and steaming with an oily, unnatural heat. The dark magic rushed up the blade and into her hands, but she did not pull away.
Instead, the queen threw her head back and laughed.
It was a wild, piercing sound that made the soldiers step backward, their armor clanking in fear. It was the laugh of someone who had looked into hell and decided to build a home there. The king took a step forward, his hand reaching out, horror freezing the blood in his veins.
Dropping the knife, the queen fell to her knees and cupped her hands directly beneath the gaping wound. As the thick, black ichor filled her palms, she brought it to her mouth. She didn't sip it from a chalice; she drank it greedily, the black liquid staining her lips, her chin, and dripping down her throat.
The moment the blood passed her lips, a great, invisible shockwave blew the smoke outward.
Deep within the minds of everyone present, a phantom roar echoed. It was a voice from a thousand years ago, ancient and full of malice, speaking without words but carrying a terrible certainty:
The beast is dead, but the blood remembers. The curse is not broken—it is reborn, amplified tenfold. A child will rise from this dark womb, but it shall carry the weight of a thousand sins. A life of betrayal, an unfaithful fate, and a death in the deepest dark awaits the heir of Morayana.
The queen collapsed against the dragon's black scales, her body shaking violently as the magic sank into her bloodline. The forest fell completely silent, leaving only the sound of her heavy, ragged breathing in the dark.